Being a Witness Made Me Crazy…or Not

Good Morning, Highness.

I am grateful to know the body in the bag was not real. Though it might have made another fun party game if you suggested it were, and everyone had to guess who you had shoved in there. Is that too macabre for a children’s party game? “Guess Who Mommy Murdered!?!” I think it could catch on. Like a crime drama, only the other way ’round. You know, reverse profiling. They do it all the time on Criminal Minds.

Some people might say I watch too much Criminal Minds, and to those people I say, “That’s decidedly untrue. I watch an exactly appropriate amount of Criminal Minds, because there is no such thing as ‘too much’ Dr Spencer Reid, and that is a goddamn FACT.” And then those people have no choice but to concede victory, because it’s a goddamn fact and you just can’t argue with the goddamn facts.

I read Ecclesiastes this morning, because that’s what I do when I get to feeling as though everything in the whole wide world is pointless.

It’s not very encouraging, really. It basically just says everything in the whole wide world is pointless.

At the same time, and for an unknown reason, it does make me feel better. Me and this dude who was gifted supernatural wisdom from God and then wrote (part of) the Bible are on the same page. Literally and figuratively.

In my travels, I have met a fantastic lot of people who used to be Witnesses, (and thankfully a number of my favorite Witnesses have become former Witnesses, which allows for us all to be friends, yay) and the prevailing sentiment seems to be that they never really bought it. I mean, they did it, because they knew they were supposed to do it, because parents and congregations and the whole truck load of nonsense that tricks you into making a lifetime commitment when you’re fucking TWELVE, and then you’re stuck because you can’t leave unless you’re ready to sign off on everyone who ever mattered to you in your life, but they didn’t buy it.

Did you really buy it? Because I totally bought it, and when I returned it, there was not a refund. No store credit, no exchange, nothing. I mean, I put a lot into that b.s. just to get a big, fat nothing out of it at the end.

I feel like Inigo Montoya.

Nobody has killed my father, of course (though that would be my first guess of who was in the bag if my family played a game of “Guess Who Mommy Murdered!?!”), so the comparison is not as apt as might be, but I think of that line:

“I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over… I don’t know what to do with my life.”

I used to honestly believe that the things I was doing all day every day were saving people’s lives, or at least had the potential to do so. I was doing THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THEWORLD.That’s a tough act to follow, now that my religious superpowers have been neutralized by those nefarious (and decidedly heathen) super-villains Logic and Reason. Looking back, I realize that I was not doing the most important thing in the world, but had been indoctrinated and brainwashed to think that I was.

I miss thinking that.

I miss having absolute, total, and mortifyingly complete conviction that the thing I was doing was the one and only right thing to be doing.

I never feel like that anymore.

You know what I want to do? Write. That’s what I want to do. There’s a problem in there, though. If I’m writing, I can’t just enjoy writing. I feel like I should be doing something more fundamentally life-saving with my time. And my self-questioning is not limited to creative pursuits. All activities are open targets. Mopping the floor? How can I justify doing something so mundane when I could be out there saving the universe? Having a job? Please. I was made for stronger stuff than this nonsense. I HAVE A UNIVERSE TO RESCUE. GOD DEPENDS ON ME TO SAVE ALL THE LIVES. I CANNOT BE BOTHERED WITH THESE TRIVIALITIES.

Oh, wait. No he doesn’t. Some bunch of guys I don’t even know in New York just made that up, and I keep forgetting it wasn’t real.

Okay, so now what?

I don’t know if there’s an answer. Maybe it’s just habituating myself to some new way of seeing things. Maybe the reprogramming just takes a long time. It’s been seven years, for crying out loud. How long is this gonna take??? I’d like to move on already.

It’s hard when you can do anything you want. I spent my whole life making sure I didn’t want anything so that I’d be ready to do what God wanted. And now God’s all, “What I want is for you to figure this out for yourself,” and I’m all, “That’s a dick-move, God,” and He’s all, “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to talk to me like that, mortal,” and I’m all, “Right. Sorry. In Jesus name, Amen,” but I’m pretty sure He actually thinks it’s kind of cute, because He never strikes me with lightning or locusts or diseases or anything.

But He doesn’t give me the answer, either. That sucks.

Although that might not be true. Sometimes I think He does answer, and He is saying “I want you to do what you want to do. I don’t need you. That was never the point. This is supposed to be fun,” only that seems like a trick on account of the aforementioned brainwashing, and I never can quite bring myself to buy all the way into it.

Sigh.

So I guess I’ll spend the rest of the day doing whatever the hell I want but feeling vaguely guilty about it on account of, you know, God and stuff. And then I realize that lots of people who were never, ever a Witness for a single minute of a single day of their lives deal with that every day too, and maybe it’s just being a person that makes me crazy.